Battle of Basian

Part of the Georgian-Seljuk wars

Date	July 27, 1202
Location	Near Basian
Result	Decisive Georgian victory

Belligerents

Kingdom of Georgia

Sultanate of Rum

Abbasid Caliphate
Anatolian beyliks
Ayyubids
Eldiguzids
Burids
Ghurids

Commanders and leaders

David Soslan
Zakaria Mkhargrdzeli
Shalva of Akhaltsikhe

Süleymanshah II

Strength

65,000

400,000 (various medieval sources)

The Battle of Basiani (Georgian: ბასიანის ბრძოლა) was fought, in the 13th century, between the armies of the Kingdom of Georgia and the Seljuqid Sultanate of Rum in the Basiani vale 60 km northeast of the city of Erzurum in what is now northeast Republic of Turkey. The battle is variously dated between 1202 and 1205, but 1203 or 1204 has lately been given preference. The contemporary Muslim annalist Ibn Bibi places the battle in 598 AH (October 1, 1201 – September 19, 1202). The modern Turkish historians identify the castle of Micingerd (Mazankert) as the location of the battle.

The battle was one of those several conflicts between the Georgian monarchs and the Seljuqid rulers of Anatolia that fill the region’s history of the 11th–13th century. It marked yet another attempt by the Seljuqids to stem the Georgian advances southward. The story of this conflict is narrated in the contemporary Georgian, Armenian and Islamic sources.

The sultan of Rüm, Rukn ad-Din Süleymanshah II (r. 1196–1204), fought hard, with considerable success, to reassemble once a vast state fragmentized under his late father Kilij Arslan II. Initially, his relations with the neighboring kingdom of Georgia were ostensibly peaceful, including the exchange of embassies and precious gifts. However, Süleymanshah’s 1201 takeover of Erzurum whose last Saltukid ruler (malik) `Ala' ad-Din was, at that time, a tributary to the Georgian crown, brought Süleymanshah II into an inevitable confrontation with the Georgians. The sultan further resented a tribute levied by the Georgian rulers upon the neighboring Muslim beyliks and requested its withdrawal in an ultimatum presented to the Georgian Queen regnant Tamar. According to the Georgian chronicle, Süleymanshah’s emissary delivered a highly offending letter to Tamar in which the sultan threatened to take her as a concubine upon his conquest of Georgia.

...
Wikipedia